The New York Times
March 17, 2004
Politics and School Promotion
Editorial
There
is nothing about Mayor Michael Bloomberg that's more admirable than his determination
to improve New York City schools. But lately he has been acting as if he
believes he is the only person in town who cares about the welfare of the
students. This week, he fired members of the public school governance board
who disagreed with his new initiative to stop social promotion and rammed
through that controversial policy. Mr. Bloomberg was wrong on two counts.
He made a political mistake in reinforcing the worst fears of opponents of
mayoral control of the schools. He made an educational mistake in imposing
a plan that sounds good but is likely to hurt more children than it helps.
The strict new promotion standard could cause as many as 15,000 children
each year to repeat third grade — four times the number usually held back.
The city tried a similar program once before, with the disastrous Gates program
of the 1980's. That program held back legions of children, who ended up with
little to show for the stigma and the extra time spent repeating grades.
The city emerged from that disastrous period understanding that forcing huge
numbers of third graders to repeat the grade would do little to improve their
performance. What would really help would be smaller classes, skilled teachers
and more intensive instruction.
Mayor Bloomberg cannot point to any other city where a program like the one
he is pushing has worked. But he argues, passionately, that the city has
to try something to save lagging students before it is too late. His aides
say the new program will be much better than the one that failed so miserably
in the 80's, with more resources and a better structure.
Obviously, if a child is not working at grade level, teachers need to intervene.
The main disagreement between Mr. Bloomberg and his critics is the mayor's
insistence that young students should be kept back on the basis of a single
test. Even testing companies acknowledge that this is inappropriate. Attendance,
participation, teacher evaluations and other information need to be part
of the equation.
The appeal of Mr. Bloomberg's more stringent standard lies in the impression
that all third graders can be brought up to performance standards by simply
holding them back until they master the material. There's little evidence
that such a strategy has ever worked, or that children will try harder because
of the fear of not being promoted. On the other hand, the data shows that
students who repeat grades eventually become discouraged and stop trying.
The mayor, who has virtually no experience in education, was given unprecedented
powers to run the city schools by the Legislature. In exchange, the lawmakers
required him to seek approval for new policies from a 13-person governing
board, 8 of whose members were appointed by him. Despite the fact that most
board members owed their appointments to the mayor, and knew that he could
replace them at any time, Mr. Bloomberg could not rally a majority for his
program. Most people would have taken that as a message that the policy needed
reworking. Mr. Bloomberg took it as a mandate to fire the rebellious board
members. It was far from his best hour.
© 2004, The New York Times Co.